


These Small Hours

by AutumnWoodsDreamer



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Friendship, Gen, One Shot, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnWoodsDreamer/pseuds/AutumnWoodsDreamer
Summary: A series of one-shots, set throughout time, following everyone’s favourite time-travelling pistachio protectors/alien trash janitors...
Relationships: Balthazar Cavendish & Vinnie Dakota
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	These Small Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s their first day (officially) working together and Cavendish starts to realize there’s a lot more to Dakota than meets the eye...

Balthazar Cavendish had only met Vinnie Dakota twice so far: first when he rudely barged into his student time vehicle and then the next day when fate twisted again and assigned them as partners.

It had been a week since that whole incident and today they were to receive their first (official) assignment. Vinnie suggested they carpool and drive over to the Bureau together; still nursing the bruises from the last time he was relegated to the passenger seat, Balthazar insisted he would drive.

Vinnie lived clear on the other side of the city—a 20 minute drive from Balthazar’s apartment near the east hills (well, 20 minutes by airway, but closer to 30 if traffic forced him to travel by road, as it did today). Although the prospect of a lengthy commute annoyed him, he supposed the distance could be a good thing as it lessened the likelihood of them running into each other outside of work.

As he drove, he found his spirits caught in a strange mix of both burning optimism and ice-cold dread. While he couldn’t deny that saving the day and working with a partner had been extremely exciting, that element of unpredictability still bothered him.

He didn’t like things he couldn’t control; he never had. The high regard he held for order and precision had enabled him to play piano with astounding technical accuracy and to learn and practise law with a keen certainty. When he had first shifted his attention to studying time travel, he was sure his eye for detail and reverence for rules would make him a fine agent; now, in light of recent events, he couldn’t help but wonder if it would be enough...

He reached the address Vinnie had described over the phone and decided it would be best to pack his niggling doubts away in a proverbial box and leave it on a very high shelf for the time being.

He parked on the street, got out the car, straightened his attire, and paused for a moment to take in the scene. This part of town was built well over a century ago and the majority of its inhabitants occupied that odd but plentiful bracket of the lower end of middle class. Vinnie’s apartment building stood in a row of similar, blockish structures, all of which boasted bare bricks and wrought iron fire escapes and stood somewhere between eight and twelve storeys high. Altogether, it seemed a pleasant neighbourhood but Balthazar thought it better suited to struggling artists or the blue-collar crowd rather than a Time Agent.

He found and rang the bell for the apartment listed under Vinnie Dakota. Enough time passed that he considered ringing again when the intercom crackled on and a tired voice greeted him.

“What’s up, chicken butt?”

“I beg your pardon?!”

“Oh, hey!” Vinnie exclaimed. “Mr Banana! How ya doin’?”

“It’s Cavendish,” Balthazar corrected, icily.

“Oh, right. Cavendish, banana—eh, that’s just how my mind works. Sorry. Hang on, I’ll buzz you in.”

“I can just wait out h—” he began but the intercom clicked off and the door unlocked before he could finish. With a resigned sigh, he entered the building.

He took the elevator to the seventh floor, then it was “just down the hall, take the first left, and it’s the third door to your right. Ya can’t miss it.” Well, Vinnie had been right about that: it was the only door covered in stickers.

“My friend went to Hawaii and all he got me was this lousy sticker,” lamented a disproportionate pineapple wearing sunglasses and surfing a wave. Another portrayed the Eiffel Tower with a moustache and a beret bidding “Bon voyage!” A variety of stickers brought greetings from Italy, Tokyo, Cape Town, Sydney, and other capital cities around the world (most with their old names no one used anymore, Balthazar noted). Dotted about the place were depictions of random objects like a ukulele and some kind of car, some were types of food like pizza and kebabs, but he couldn’t miss the fact that most were cartoonish caricatures of extinct creatures he had only seen pictures of in textbooks.

Distracted by the odd collage, Balthazar jumped back when the door opened without warning.

“C’mon in, Stretch,” Vinnie beckoned, bringing his hand up to just barely cover a loud yawn as he stepped aside to allow his guest in. “Make yourself at home; I’ll be with you as soon as I find my jacket.”

Balthazar glanced over his new partner’s attire and pointedly cleared his throat.

Vinnie closed the door behind them and turned around, frowning in confusion when he caught sight of the other man’s disapproving expression. He looked down and only then seemed to register that he was only wearing a faded T-shirt and boxers. “Oh. And my pants. Probably need those, too.”

Balthazar crossed his arms. “You should be dressed by now. This is highly unprofessional.”

“Hey! I am dressed!” Vinnie protested. “Just not for work. And, in the future, if you’re gonna get all high and mighty, the least you could do is warn a guy when you’re gonna be a whole hour early!”

“I am not—!” Balthazar began but cut himself off when he caught sight of an analog clock on a bookshelf. In preparing to travel to the past, he had had to learn to read those: both hands pointing down meant 6:30.

He consulted his own watch and his face went red. “Oh, blast it!” he muttered, hotly, as he started fiddling with the settings. “I forgot I had this infernal contraption set an hour ahead!”

“What? You on daylight savings time or something?”

“Pardon?”

“Daylight sa—never mind. It was a thing over a century ago.”

“I set it an hour ahead last week because of my driving test,” Balthazar explained, trying not to sound too sheepish.

Vinnie raised an eyebrow, his expression suddenly turning as serious as it had been when he saw those kids in danger. “Are you that bad at keeping time?”

He quickly shook his head. “Hardly ever; I just really didn’t want to chance being even the slightest bit late for my final exam.”

“You know there’s such a thing as too early, right?”

“I don’t believe so; no.”

There was a moment wherein he thought Vinnie was going to argue the point, but he just shrugged and waved a dismissive hand. “Like I said: make yourself at home, I’ll just be a few minutes,” he said and peeled away.

Balthazar intended to remain in the one spot; he had finished resetting his watch but still felt like a complete idiot and didn’t want to risk any further gaffes. But his curiosity got the better of him and he soon found himself wandering (well, he did have permission...)

He had to admit he held a few preconceived ideas of what the home of Vinnie Dakota might look like. He’d only met the man briefly, but he seemed rather committed to his reckless, blasé attitude and he could only imagine such a person living in a slovenly, malodorous nest.

That was not the case.

The apartment was small and cramped and cluttered, but it wasn’t dirty. There was a strong, unusual smell hanging in the air; although Balthazar couldn’t identify it, it wasn’t all that unpleasant—actually, it reminded him of those old-fashioned restaurants he used to play piano in.

The bookshelf he noticed earlier caught his eye again; this time, he took note of the colourful array of books stacked and lined on the shelves as well as the diverse collection of trinkets, souvenirs, and gadgets. The objects were displayed with little rhyme or reason regarding their order: snow-globes of all kinds and shapes mingled amongst Chinese fans and Russian nesting dolls and defunct devices such as a camcorder, a dial telephone, and a zoetrope. Balthazar didn’t fail to notice that, although most of those things would be considered antiques, they were all in fairly new condition.

After a few minutes, he took a step back and his attention quickly shifted from the bookshelf to the hundreds of photographs in mismatched frames covering the walls, so much so that one could barely glimpse the bright yellow wallpaper beneath. The quality of the photographs varied from grainy, black and white to slightly washed-out, sepia tone to clear and vibrantly coloured.

Balthazar knew his new partner had been a Time Agent for a while already; it was the Bureau’s policy to pair new recruits with full-fledged agents. But _knowing_ this man had already been on missions throughout time and actually _seeing_ snapshots of that career were two very different things.

Quite a few of the photographs showcased places and buildings in different time periods, positioned side by side to highlight the changes through the years; a number featured archaic machines and devices, and more of those extinct creatures (except this time they were real, not just cartoonish representations); but, most notably, the majority of the photographs were candid shots of people.

After casually examining the photos for a few minutes, Balthazar began to register a few recurrent faces. The most notable subject was a young man with olive skin, dark hair, and a short but lean frame; always wearing tinted shades of some sort, always caught in the middle of a laugh or striking a silly pose—without the wild shock of curls, it took him quite a while to identify him as a younger Vinnie. Often pictured alongside him either mirroring the silly pose or with a hand on his shoulder was a much taller, older man with dark blue hair and weathered skin; if it weren’t for the fact they lacked any physical similarity, Balthazar would’ve assumed the man was Vinnie’s father. Wherever the older man was absent, a young woman with a dark, flawless complexion and glossy, violet hair took his place—there were hardly any instances of her smiling and she didn’t seem to care for Vinnie’s antics at all but she must not have completely disliked him as there was one photo of her curled up and asleep in the backseat of a Time Vehicle with her head resting on his shoulder.

There was only one photograph with all three of them. It seemed to be after a mission of some sort. They all looked dog-tired, covered in bruises and dirt, but they still managed smiles for the camera, holding their heads up even as they leaned on each other for support. The muted colouring of the photograph suggested it had been taken somewhere around the mid-1900’s but Balthazar hadn’t honed his skills enough to pinpoint precisely when. Most of interest was a small note accompanying the photograph in the frame; it was just a scrap of paper, presumably torn from a cheap notebook and not at all remarkable save for the short message scrawled on it:

_To Vinnie and Silvia,_

_Count every moment and make every moment count,_

_Emit Relevart_

_The Hot War Mission (1964 / 2164)_

“‘Hot War’?” Balthazar read aloud, his face crumpling in confusion. “What the deuce is—?”

“It’s everything the Cold War wasn’t.”

Balthazar gasped and jumped backwards, a hand flying up to clutch his chest. “Kidney pie and chips!” he exclaimed. “Don’t do that!”

A now more appropriately dressed Vinnie gave him a sideways glance. “Well, that’s one way to keep it PG,” he remarked with an utterly infuriating bemused smirk. He let out a soft huff of a laugh and gave a small shake of his head as he returned his gaze to the photograph.

Balthazar opened his mouth, ready to say quite a few things—such as “What does ‘PG’ mean?” and “Don’t sneak up on people!”—but the words stopped in his throat.

Something flashed across Vinnie’s expression, something even the bulky sunglasses with their vibrant tint couldn’t hide; it was only there for the briefest of moments but Balthazar didn’t miss it. He’d seen it before, on the faces of complete strangers who gathered whenever he played an old, slow melody on the piano in the middle of the city square.

He turned his attention back to the picture one last time. He couldn’t quite determine if it was the people or the referenced occasion, but he got the sense this was an important piece of Vinnie. He made it a point to commit the little message to memory—what it would accomplish, well, he wasn’t so sure in that regard, but it felt too significant to miss.

Vinnie cleared his throat; the sound was abrupt but Balthazar was aware of his surroundings enough this time around not to jump again. “So,” he said, his smile and easy demeanour returning in a flash, “seeing as we have a whole hour to kill, how’s about we get some breakfast?”

Balthazar crossed his arms and put on a glare that was only half-strength. “I hope you’re not planning to kidnap me and drag me to the early 2000’s just for omelettes.”

He seemed to consider that for a second before shaking his head. “I can’t think of any good places for omelettes... not in the 2000’s, anyway. Nah, I was just gonna make something.” He whirled around and headed for the kitchen. “You like pancakes?”

“You actually know how to cook?”

Vinnie shrugged. “Eh, I picked up a few things here and there. It comes in handy when you travel to time periods that don’t have auto-preppers.”

“And yet you still felt it necessary to hijack my Time Vehicle and travel back over a century just to get lunch?” Balthazar raised an eyebrow.

Vinnie shot his new partner a lopsided smirk. “You’re not gonna let that one go, are you, Stretch?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are not enough stories with Cavendish and Dakota’s friendship... especially in it’s early phase.
> 
> Should be some more one-shots to come, mainly featuring our favourite time-travellers/alien trash janitors but also the Murphy lot because I love all of them.
> 
> * Collection title from the song “Little Wonders” by Rob Thomas


End file.
